Repeated argument won't draw believers - GUEST OPINION

A few weeks ago the economist Walter E. Williams stated that insanity can be defined as "doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." It is a definition often attributed to Albert Einstein.

For the scientist, that dictum may make sense. For the athlete or musician, among other perfectionists, it makes little sense. For them, practice makes perfect.

But who is Williams targeting as insane? Apparently, it is the "cities where large percentages of black Americans . . . live under poor conditions."

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He denies that he detects a causal relationship between the social problems of these cities and the fact that they have elected Democratic leaders in recent years.

He also denies that he believes that their citizens should have voted for Republican candidates. He then argues that "if one is strategizing on how to improve the lives of the poorest black people" he should not vote for "Democrats and black politicians." This contradiction may not be insane but it's not rational.

Williams states that Forbes magazine currently ranks Detroit as the nation's most dangerous city. He neglects to mention Forbes' commentary that Detroit "has been in a four-decade decline, paralleling the slide of the US economy. . . . It is a circuitous problem as high crime and unemployment force people to leave the city, which lowers the tax base and strains Detroit's finances even further." Apparently he has forgotten that in an earlier editorial he stated that Forbes' rankings are not to be trusted.

Delusional is the best way to describe William's remark that "racial discrimination has little to do with major problems confronting black people."

What can be of greater concern to blacks than the attempt to suppress one's right to vote?

Has he so quickly forgotten the attempts of a number of states, whose legislatures are controlled by Republicans, to suppress the votes of blacks as well as Latinos, the young and the elderly in the last national election by requiring photo identification, shortened voting hours and complicated voting procedures?

Even Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is under attack again. The Act requires that certain states and other jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination obtain clearance from the the federal government if they wish to change their voting laws.

A decision on its constitutionality is once again pending before the Supreme Court. Also, it has been estimated that Republican legislators have introduced 55 new voting restrictions in 30 states so far this year.

The balance of his column repeats data that he has cited in previous columns. They include the incidence of teenage maternity, high rates of crime, and low scholastic achievement of blacks as though these social ills were confined to the black community.

Poverty, not race, is what these social ills have in common. Poverty may not be the cause of these ills but it is the driver which keeps their cyclic momentum in a downward spiral.

No, I'm not suggesting that Professor Williams is insane. I am proposing that he is working from the premise that if you repeat something often enough, true or false, people will believe you.